Former Burton Snowboards boss to take over Lululemon

Jenny Lee, Vancouver Sun12.10.2013

Lululemon's new Swiss-born CEO Laurent Potdevin, 46, spent 15 years in executive roles at sports equipment and apparel giant Burton Snowboards, his final five as CEO. Prior to that he moved from Paris to North America to restructure the technology and supply chain for Louis Vuitton’s retail stores for fashion conglomerate LVMH.Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images; Handout
/ Financial Post

Lululemon Athletica Inc. founder and Chairman of the Board Chip Wilson smiles before speaking at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Richmond, B.C., on Friday December 7, 2012. Wilson is stepping down as chairman of Lululemon. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

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VANCOUVER -- Lululemon Athletica announced on Tuesday that it has recruited an experienced executive with a long history of building global sports and apparel brands as the new CEO of the Vancouver-based yoga-wear retailer.

Swiss-born Laurent Potdevin will take over as chief executive next month. He had most recently served as president of TOMS shoes — which gives away a pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair of shoes sold — and before that worked with founder Jake Burton at sports equipment and clothing giant Burton Snowboards for more than 15 years. Potdevin was Burton president and CEO from 2005 to 2010. He began his career at LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton.

Lululemon also confirmed on Tuesday that founder Chip Wilson is stepping down as non-executive chairman following a difficult year in which the yoga-clothing retailer had to recall pants for being too sheer, current CEO Christine Day announced her resignation, and Wilson made injudicious public comments about women’s bodies.

The leadership changes signal the end of an era, as the colourful, idiosyncratic, new-age Wilson leaves the company he built from a single store in Kitsilano into a multinational retail chain.

Highlights of Wilson’s storied tenure include the company’s offer of free clothing to customers who arrived naked in 2002, seaweed T-shirts intended to release amino acids, minerals and vitamins into the skin in 2007, and Wilson encouraging employees to take part in personal development company Landmark Education’s training courses.

But Lululemon now appears to have brought in the professional executive team needed to help it transition into a global company.

Wilson will be replaced as board chairman in the coming months by Michael Casey, a current director and former Starbucks chief financial officer.

Wilson will retain his seat on the board.

The new leadership “creates a cleaner management structure and less room for conflict between the founder/chairman and the incoming CEO,” said Liz Dunn, an analyst at Macquarie Group in New York.

Potdevin said Tuesday that he does not expect to make any immediate changes.

“The business model is fantastic, the brand is exceptional, the product is outstanding and beautiful. It really is a matter of understanding all facets of the business and collaborating with the team and to continue to make it better.”

Potdevin described himself as a generalist with experience in all business functions in all regions, and said that the key to managing high-speed global growth “is to really continue to provide the resources, both financial and human, to make sure you can continue to leverage on the current success and building that success beyond North America.”

At both Burton and TOMS, Potdevin said he had direct experience with building companies in a very high growth mode with initial strength in just one region.

“In both organizations, we were able to very quickly build in infrastructure both from technology and supply chain standpoints and from a sourcing and quality standpoint to really support a global business,” Potdevin said.

Lululemon expects to benefit from Potdevin’s track record in building global brands, Casey said in a news release.

“He has more than two decades of experience at premium, technical athletic apparel, and lifestyle-centric retail companies, and his shared passion for driving innovative, community-focused brands makes him an excellent cultural fit for Lululemon. Additionally, his deep understanding of the importance of top-quality technical design, retail marketing strategies, and the power of building a strong brand provides him with the tools we believe are necessary to lead our next exciting phase of growth.”

Lululemon has seen sales increase 16-fold in the past seven years, but has been grappling with slowing gains after the recall of one of its most popular styles of pants at a time when rivals are strengthening their atheltic-wear lines.

Last month, Wilson gave a controversial interview in which he suggested that it wasn’t that Lululemon’s pants were defectively sheer, but that certain women’s bodies were unsuitable for the garments.

“Quite frankly, some women’s bodies just actually don’t work for it,” Wilson told Bloomberg TV. “It’s really about the rubbing through the thighs, how much pressure is there.”

Wilson had previously stepped down as chief innovation and branding officer in early 2012.

Omar Saad, an analyst at ISI Group in New York, said last month that the perception of Wilson’s interference in running the business may have hindered the search for Christine Day’s successor.

Wilson’s Lululemon story began after studying petroleum economics at the University of Calgary. Always athletic, he decided to sew a few long, baggy shorts to combat the uncomfortable tight shorts popular during the late-1970s and ended up selling them on a rented table in a downtown Calgary mall. By the early-1980s, he was selling his shorts to a Kitsilano store. A few years later, he opened the West Beach skateboard/surfer clothing retail chain with partners, and in 1998, he started Lululemon to tap into what he presciently saw as a growing market for yoga wear.

Lululemon shares fell 1.7 per cent to close at $69.12 in Nasdaq trading on Monday. The stock has slipped 8.4 per cent this year, compared with a 27-per-cent gain in the S&P 500 Index. Wilson owned about 28 per cent of the shares outstanding, according to a September filing.

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Former Burton Snowboards boss to take over Lululemon

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